Method, Apparatus and Computer Program Product for Managing Persistence in a Messaging Network

1. A method in a data processing system for managing persistence within a messaging network comprising the steps, performed by a message server of: identifying at least one characteristic of at least one messaging client involved in a first message-based communication; determining from said at least one characteristic whether data relating to the message-based communication requires saving to persistent storage; saving data relating to the message-based communication to persistent storage in response to a positive result of said determining step; receiving a second message-based communication; and responsive to the second message being identified as non-persistent by a sender messaging client, not saving second data relating to the second message-based communication.

2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of identifying at least one characteristic comprises identifying connection characteristics of a messaging client to which at least one message is to be transferred by the message server.

3. A method according to claim 2 , wherein the connection characteristics comprise data relating to previous connections between the messaging client and the message server.

4. A method according to claim 3 , wherein the connection characteristics represent a number of disconnections of the messaging client from the message server within a defined period of time.

5. A method according to claim 3 , wherein the connection characteristics represent an average duration of connections between the messaging client and the message server.

6. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the messaging network comprises at least one publishing client and at least one subscriber client and a publish/subscribe message broker for matching received publications with registered subscriptions, wherein the step of identifying characteristics of at least one messaging client comprises determining a number of matching subscribers for messages published by the at least one messaging client.

7. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the not saving comprises retaining the data in volatile memory.

8. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of identifying at least one characteristic comprises identifying whether a messaging client, from which at least one nominally-persistent message is received, is capable of saving message-related data persistently.

9. A computer program product in a computer readable medium comprising computer program instructions, for controlling the performance of operations of a data processing apparatus on which the computer program instructions execute, to perform a method according to claim 1 .

10. A data processing system comprising: a processor; a volatile data store; a non-volatile data store; and a message manager, wherein the message manager comprises: identifying means for identifying at least one characteristic of at least one first messaging client involved in a message-based communication; determining means for determining from said at least one characteristic whether data relating to the message-based communication requires saving to the non-volatile data store; saving means for saving data relating to the message-based communication from the volatile data store to the non-volatile data store in response to a positive result of said determining step; receiving means for receiving a second message-based communication; and means, responsive to the second message being identified as non-persistent by a sender messaging client, for not saving second data relating to the second message-based communication.